The disclosed invention is a particulate material which aids and assists recovery from trauma to bones. Consider two or three examples which set forth the context in which the material is used. As one example, assume that a bone has been partially broken away. The material of this disclosure enables the bone to be filled with the material wherein subsequent bone growth occurs in the process of integrating the particulate material into the bone. As another example, the material can be used to fill an extraction socket to prevent bone resorption. This can be true whether the extraction socket results from partial or complete removal of the tooth that was previously there. Moreover, the material can be used to pack into a minor bone defect or in filling a portion of a bone removed by injury or as a result of disease.
Consider as another possibility the use of the present material in bone repair or replacement. This is particularly important for bones which have not been merely fractured but which have been shattered into multiple pieces. In particularly violent accidents, there is a possibility of bone shattering i.e., when the bone is broken into many pieces or chips. When the orthopaedic repair process is initiated, the bone which has been shattered into multiple chips and pieces may require substantial remedial repair which initially begins with locating some or all the bone chips to reposition them for the repair. This is difficult, and sometimes impossible. In some accidents, the bone chips simply cannot be located. Repositioning a multiplicity of randomly shaped retrieved bone chips may be difficult. For instance, in shattering accidents, some of the chips may be so badly displaced or lost that it is impossible to reposition all the bone chips as a preliminary step to repair of the injury. Imagine as an example that a shattering injury occurs to the tibia whereupon certain of the chips in the central portion of the tibia are missing. At the time of reconstruction, it is helpful to reposition the bone chips (to the degree they are available) so that the repaired tibia has the same length (upon healing) as before the injury. In the absence of such bone chips, the healing process hopefully involves a growing together of the two ends of the bone to span such chips as can be found. This is not necessarily an assured healing process. Moreover, it also requires that the bone chips be held in a substantially prealigned position in advance of the completion of the healing process; this also is somewhat chancy, and may well involve undue optimism in the positioning of the chips and the holding of that position, sometimes for weeks or months, as the healing process continues. So to speak, the remaining ends of the bone and the chips spanning the space between the ends of the bone must knit together ultimately to provide a healed bone. During the interim, some of the chips may be "floating" in position hopefully to be assimilated by the healing process. This requires excessively long immobilization of the limb, all to the inconvenience of the patient.
This disclosure is directed to a particulate material which can be used in bone repair. Assume in the foregoing example that the tibia is fractured in such a way as to be missing bone chips in a span of six or eight centimeters (for an adult). The healing process contemplated using the material of this disclosure then involves positioning the two ends of the tibia at the necessary spacing for healing to full length. Moreover, a few of the bone chips may be located and placed in the gap. To the degree that the chips cannot be found, the voids and cavities left in the reassembled chips are filled with the particulate material of this disclosure. Moreover, adjacent chips are reassembled with the particulate material of this disclosure between chips to enhance regrowth in the healing process. The material of this disclosure is integrated into the healed bone structure so that the chips grow together, even growing through the material of this disclosure. To this end, the repair material set forth below is porous to enable bone to grow through the material. Healing is thereby accelerated because there is no gap between adjacent chips. Moreover, healing appears to be accelerated with less discomfort to the patient, this being achieved through reduced immobilization.
Additionally, the healing process appears to be enhanced because the region of the healed bone involving the particulate material appears stronger. That is, it is stronger in that it is a composite of a bone (substantially calcium) and includes a supportive connected matrix of the particulate material of this disclosure. In that sense, the composite structure appears much stronger.
The present material is inert and does not appear to trigger rejection mechanisms. That is, the material is inert and remains in location, in tact, all during the healing process and is thus structurally integrated in the complete bone. Thus, it is described as free of body rejection mechanisms. The material is inert to the calcium deposited by the body in the healing process. That is, the calcium which knits the injured bone into a healed structure assimilates this material whereby the completed structure is enhanced in strength where joinder has occured. The growth appears normal in the sense that the bone grows (heals) in the conventional fashion. When the healing process is completed, to the extent that any of the particulate material of this disclosure is located in the region where the bone marrow once was, that portion will simply comprise bone marrow having this material comingled therein.